Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire blue dot mis hap

I cannot fathom loading centerfires with Blue Dot.

I'd pay $80.00 per brick of 22LR long before I spent any time doing this kind of schit.

If you need sub-sonic centerfires, Trail Boss works well.



Travis

No kidding. Like I said, if I want to sling 6mm bullets slower, with less powder, I use my 6x45 with full house loads.

Hard to not like using the slowest burning powder that works for a particular case/bullet.

I can't get enough RL22 in an 06 case to cause any problems.

"The problem with the new Alliant load tables is that their marketing staff makes them list only their bullets. Not good for a powder company to do that. It is still usable data, but I do not like it."

I didn't know Alliant made bullets.

Do you have/had an Ackley improved cartridge? What do you think the concept was? But,a hint would be to start at the beginning...

Ditto!!!!

Speer. Same company. Vista Outdoors. Headquarters in Utah.

Been lurking on this thread since it was pointed out to me while down at the Campfire Get-Together down in Arizona this past weekend...

With no insult to the OP intended, as I have said many times, if you don't want to use Blue Dot in a cartridge, then don't. If you don't know what you are doing at the reload bench, then don't use it either...

But these types of powders are not only used by pistol reloaders and carry precautions...the same is true of cast bullet shooters..in rifle calibers

a lot of folks can speculate ideas, but often they have little hands on experience... they are passing on what they've heard elsewhere and passing it off as their own original thoughts... or 'experiences'....

Don't follow where Red Dot or Green Dot are great and Blue Dot is a ticking time bomb...

I worked up and developed the loads I use in every one of the cartridges I have used it in.. from 223 right up to 338 Win Mag and 444 Marlin...

I have found Blue Dot to be one of the most consistent of ALL rifle powders I have used in reloading...

I haven't experienced ANY of the occasional "kabooom" posts one sees on the internet...

I've probably pulled the trigger on 25 to 30 thousand reloads using this powder, since I started working with it...and have not seen one failure or 'kabooom' with it....

with a disclaimer besides working up loads to see where the point was that it would cause hard bolt lifts, or pop primers.. but those times were intention during load development.

maybe it is just as the detractors want to always tell me... that "I've just been lucky so far"....but after the number of reloads I have done with it... maybe they are wrong...

regardless of the powder I have loaded, into whatever the cartridge... if a mishap occurred, I can always track it back to an oversight at the load bench...and any honest reloader will say that...

I am glad the OP is fine, and wasn't hurt. Only real mishaps I have experienced was with a 223... one was factory Black Hills ammo...damaged an action and a stock... which I repaired....
Contacted Black Hills and let them know about it, and sent them the remaining 9 rounds out of a 50 round package.. never heard back from them... they probably thought I wanted something... I was just letting them know of the mishap, so they could check their QC... turns out the load is 25 grains of H 335 and a 55 grain Hornady SP... real bread and butter every day load... who knows what happened...

then 30 days later, was reloading some 223s with the same load ( before I found out that was what Black Hills was using).. the situation repeated it self...

who knows if there were some bad batches of H 335 out there or what...all I know is that I won't touch H 335 anymore in ANY cartridge....

and I forward that recommendation to anyone that has had problems with any powder... we have too many choices available to us....

so if Blue Dot doesn't work for ya, or you have a fear of it, then why mess with it...

but for those of you that bad mouth it... that's just fine.. but if you have no hands on experience with it.. that usually shows..
and that applies to anything...

I'll continue to use it as it has given me good service, and I am sure will continue to do so...a good ten years ago, Ben Ammonette from Alliant actually sent me an email and asked if I would be willing to forward my work with it to him, Load data I worked up... he wanted to share it with some of their engineers..

I did so... and got a thank you from him....

that is as far as it went... but also, try to find any load data that cast bullet shooters use from Alliant, that have to do with load data using their powders for cast bullet rifle applications...

and yeah, data on these loads was developed without a pressure lab, etc... but were developing good old fashion common sense...
which can go along way some days...people use it less nowadays than in days gone by...

this is being posted by me with no personal insults meant to anyone for their opinions.. and is not an invitation for a debate that will degenerated into a lot of name calling per usual, according to campfire tradition...

These loads work for me, and I am sure there are others that will continue to use them with out any on line fanfare.

and I'll close with saying, besides using Blue Dot, I use loads that use Unique, SR 4759, the 4198s, RL 7, RL 10, H 322, 3031, IMR 4895 for reduced velocity loads.... there are other powders than work well also...

Granted these are not the real slow fill the case and forget about it type of powders.. these are powders that you sorta have to watch what the heck you are doing at the reload bench... If that is too much of a challenge, then the slowest powder you can find is your best choice...

but good reloading technique and discipline at the bench, is the first step to safety....reloading is risky.. for God's sake, we are taking something that will explode when we are done and putting it in front of our faces....before we do so...

paying attention and using common sense, can dramatically reduce the chances of hurting your self, or someone else...

If one doesn't want to cross that bridge, then there is factory loaded ammo... and if something wrong happens, you can blame them, instead of looking in the mirror trying to figure out who was responsible...( and that statement isn't aimed at Montana Badger, its just a realistic statement addressing the concept in general)...

and as the mythical Forrest Gump summarized... "that's all I got to say 'bout that.."

cheers
seafire

Throw your Blue Dot away.

Next topic.

Lets talk about the .3338 Win mag. Is it better than the .338?

I like Forrest Gump.

I like to Dot chitt now and again. It works.

This message approved by F. Gump.

Looked in my powder cabinet - couldn't find any BD - gonna keep it that way. Bullseye, H110, Power pistol and H4227 are perminate cabinet residents.

Blue Dot reckless , no condom
Blue Dot carfully ,condom, what if condom breaks ?

Some play with whores with out condoms, some use condoms. Condoms break , some catch the clap , gonnerra , ect. or die of aids. Others live for ever. Just because some do it and get away with it, does not mean it's the thing to do.

So it appears the answer is to always wear a condom while loading rifle cartridges with Blue Dot??......

Some even realize blue dot is no where near as dangerous as the whores you are talking about.

That was my take... I went down to Walgreens and bought me a couple of boxes... wife asked what those we're for? My response was " what the hell do you think they are for???? they're for wearing when loading and using Blue Dot powder...."

She wasn't jealous, thinking they were for me messing around with another woman... she told me she had read it somewhere that its a safe thing to do, wearing a condom when shooting Blue Dot....

Finally, someone explains in a way everyone can understand.




If you have Blue Dots, get a biopsy.

montanabadger - do you tumble your cases? There have been cases of a build-up of media sticking in a case and greatly reducing its capacity.

You hit the nail right on the head. You loaded it, outside normal practices, and shot it. Your only mistake might have been using data that was not safe. It sucks to lose a good gun, it sucks even more to get hurt, but you are here to type about it while able to view the screen. Where it me, I'd stick to pressure tested stuff.

And follow gun makers suggestions to ONLY shoot FACTORY ammo.

Thats another good start.

Why not wear three Blue Dot "condoms?"

1) Weigh rather than throw charges.
2) Visual powder level before seating bullet.
3) Weigh every loaded round to know it lies within parameters.

DakotaDeer, you forgot
4) Immediately seat a bullet after performing 1-3.

When I use Blue Dot (and cast bullet loads with fast powders that can double or triple charge) I sequence load. Throw charge. Weigh charge. Put charge in primed case. Seat bullet. Repeat with the next case. It's slower, but it's safer. And I've screwed up once by charging an entire block then seating bullets with cast bullets in .30-06 and 2400 with an "approved" load. Believe me, it only takes once. And it was my fault.